Well, I decided to start with the trousers first; on the previous weekend I traced all the patterns for the complete suit, incorporating my usual adjustments; during the following week I had no time to sew and this weekend I had some time to spare on sewing and was able to make some progress. Here’s the listing of my accomplishments:

1 – Prepared the fabric for cutting: in spite of its mainly wool content, I am surprised to say that this fabric didn’t shrink at all when subject to steam pressing (It’s expensive fabric and money buys quality most of the times: it must have been subject to pretreatment already). I did a little research on wool tailoring fabrics and I found out that the number present on the selvage qualifies the thinness of the fibers: the higher the number, the thinner the fibers used. This fabric is qualified 120, which is considered luxury fabric (source: David Coffin’s excellent book "Making Trousers for Men & Women”. He also has a blog “DPC on Making Trousers" and I found this excerpt of the book’s accompanying DVD on YouTube).

2- Cut the fabric for all three garments (blazer, vest and pants);

3- Ran a few fusible interfacing tests on scraps, tested the seams (stitching on several directions) and buttonholes; this fabric behaves beautifully.

5 – Cut the partial lining and basted it to the fronts (read my notes on this process in this past article, where I used silk organza for this purpose). The main advantage of the partial lining is reducing wrinkles and providing a little front fork reinforcement without making the garment too heavy or warm.6 – Serged-finish all the SAs on the side seams, in-seams, hems, crotch and fly-facings;

7 – Basted and stitched the back darts and the front pleats; always press as you go, using the well known pressing best practices: use a pressing cloth (silk organza makes a great pressing cloth because it can stand the heat and it’s see-through), use the right temperature setting, steam or spray water on the areas to be pressed, don’t slide the iron, just press and lift, press and use your fingers while the fabric is still hot/damp, use pressing aids like a tailored ham for curved seams (like darts) and a seam-roll for straight seams, press on both sides before pressing the seams open, etc. Most important of all: RUN SOME TESTS FIRST!

8- Constructed the back pocket (there’s no back pocket on the original model but I thought it would make a beautiful detail on this trousers); used Paco’s excellent tutorial "Bolsillos ribeteados para pantalón". The article is written in Spanish but there’s a translate button on the top. The pictures are almost self-explanatory. I proved this method to be precise and easy, achieving optimal results, as you can see in the following pictures:Inside there’s a self-fabric facing attached to the back pocket bag (made of lining), so you don’t see the lining fabric when the pocket is open:The only thing I did differently from Paco’s instructions was using a single piece of lining for both pocket bags, as you can see by the bottom fold. You can also see the horizontal stitches that join the fabric facing to the lining, inside the pocket bag:I decided to use the serger and Serafil thread for seam finishing (Serafil is a high quality special purpose serger thread which is very thin and doesn’t create imprints on the seams when they are pressed open after being serged). This method proved to be the less bulky among a few other options, because the fabric I’m using is so lightweight. Els wrote an article "Godet Skirt in semi sheer fabric" where she explains the use of this high quality thread (I bought mine on eBay, btw)

At this point I have the two pant legs ready and the next step will be the front crotch seam and the fly-front zipper. Here are a couple of pictures of the in-seam side pockets (I used self-fabric pockets bags because this fabric is lightweight and doesn’t add too much bulk. Another option would be using pocketing fabric and applying a self fabric facing next to the opening).My time has been so limited during the week and I don’t expect this situation to improve any time soon, so forgive my lack of assiduous posting and commenting on your blogs; I do what I can and I’d love to do more but that’s just not possible right now.Cheers to all and Happy Sewing or whatever you do that fulfills your need for creativity!

thanks for your fabulous construction notes. Your work is truly inspirational! I always need to get to my sewing machine after reading your blog. Thanks for taking the time to keep us up to date with your sewing adventures. It's much appreciated.